Did this 'New Girl' episode freak you out?

Did you freak out after watching this episode of 'New Girl'?  Jess was freaking out after her gynecologist friend broke the news that a woman can lose up to 90 percent of her eggs by age 30.  As cosmopolitan.com points out, Jess's panic session was funny—but do we really lose most of our eggs by age 30?

Dr. Lauren Streicher, assistant clinical professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Northwestern University
Eggs tells Cosmo that eggs "do age, but as long as you are ovulating and it's a good quality egg, it doesn't matter how many you've got in the bank." 

Dr. Streicher says egg quality is more important than egg quantity, a factor that just varies from lady to lady. We are born with about 100,000 eggs and we slowly lose them over our lifetime, but there is no magic rule that says egg count drops dramatically at age 30. 

"Even if you did lose 90,000 eggs by age 30, who cares?" she says. "You’ve still got 10,000. That's enough for 10,000 babies." Which would be about 9,998 more than a lot of us could handle! 

Well, that's all well and good, but sounds a little bit too simple and too good to be true.  So I scrolled down to the comments of the article.

A woman pointed out a study that was featured on abc two years ago: http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/OnCall/women-fertility-falls-lose-90-percent-eggs-30/story?id=9693015#.UMH6wJPjnIZ.

Dr. Marie Savard, a "Good Morning America" medical contributor, discussed a study which looked at the egg supply of 325 women of varying ages from the UK, the US, and also Europe and answered some frequently asked fertility questions for women.

The full study can be found here: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0008772.

The most important point that the findings of the study shows is that women lose eggs a lot faster than was previously thought, and that by the age of 30, we lose about 90% of our egg reserves!

The GMA piece did answer the question that the 'New Girl' episode brought up for many of us about having your eggs counted. The answer?  It's not possible.  You can measure the size of your ovaries and test your hormone levels, but there is no way to know for sure how many quality eggs you have left.

What is the take away message of this study & news story?  Have kids earlier rather than later if possible.

I'm 31, and B & I are planning on doing IVF when I'm 32 if we are not pregnant on our own yet.  We started out on this whole infertility road when I turned 27, and started seeking help when I was 29.  When we started, I was still at a healthy reproductive age and by the time we hopefully get pregnant with ART I'll be entering the age of those poor women who "waited too long" to have kids.  Not fair.

I wish they didn't blame it so much on women's rights and career driven goals.  Some of us try to start at a younger age and still face these issues.  ART is expensive for most of us, and so we don't always have the luxury of jumping into IVF as soon as we find out that conceiving naturally won't come easy to us.

I can have a career and not blame my infertility on it.

This is how crazy I am

So Prince William & Princess Kate are pregnant.  I'm curious and my attention directly gets sucked into any news about their condition... and I should be happy for them like the rest of the world, but I'm not.

I always kind of felt like my life mirrored Prince William's.  My parents got married the same year as Charles & Diana, and I'm only about 9 months older than the first-born prince.  I got married about 10 months before the current Duke & Duchess of Cambridge, and I just hoped in my silly-little fantasy mind of mine that we'd get pregnant around the same time as the royal couple.

I don't wish the heartache of infertility on anyone, but part of me takes comfort when celebrities share their stories of infertility tragedy & triumph.  I'm glad the princess is NOT suffering from infertility, but if she was, like me, it would bring a lot more awareness to a growing problem in modern society.

If infertility wasn't such a stigma, and more people talked openly about it, and more became aware of it, maybe someday ART could be covered by health insurance and our pocketbooks wouldn't determine our eligibility to conceive and give birth.

Like I said yesterday, B & I need to move to a European country where this stuff is covered so I can stop projecting my own angst onto every celebrity, acquaintance, friend, and relative who gets pregnant.

Seriously, I'm upset about Princess Kate being pregnant (and announcing it at 8 weeks, that just seems cocky!)?  As the title of this post says, it just goes to show you how cray cray I'm really becoming.  Glad I can say these things here so I don't have to say them out loud!  Maybe there is something to that Dutch study about involuntarily childless couples having a higher risk of psychiatric illness... ;)

Meredith is Pregnant, Are You Happy for Her?

I've blogged about infertility themes on Grey's Anatomy before, in fact, I started watching the show again earlier this year (all 8 seasons, from beginning to end) just because I heard they were struggling with infertility.  I also learned about Derek's ex wife, Addison's infertility troubles on Private Practice at around the same time.

I loved the adoption episode, when Meredith says that they tell you when you're going through the adoption process that, "The baby you have is the baby you were destined to have.  It was meant to be."

To learn more about what Meredith & Derek's infertility diagnosis is, follow this link: http://www.wetpaint.com/greys-anatomy/articles/behind-the-medical-jargon-what-is-a-hostile-uterus.

Anyway, if I'm being honest, I have to admit that the recent turn of events, in which Meredith tells Derek she's 3 weeks pregnant really disappointed me.  I should be happy for her.  I should be rooting for a formal infertile sister who finally gets what we all want so badly.  But I can't.

I can't because it's not real anyway.  She is a fictitious character.  Although it comforted me that in her storyline the writers had her sharing similar experiences as me, and brought awareness to the struggle so many of us face, I feel that having her just get miraculously pregnant without going round after round of ART just isn't fair.

It's like they are just validating the bane of every infertile woman's existence, the comment,"if you just relax and stop trying so hard, it will just happen."

In fact, I'm so mad about this, I can barely get into it.

I see in the most recent episode Meredith needs to schedule her 8 week ultrasound.  I know how horrible this sounds, but I was hoping they'd have her miscarry again, but it's starting to look like they might go through with this and give them a baby.  If she miscarried again though, it would bring more awareness to what so many women go through in their quest to become mothers.  Getting our hopes built up so high just to have them all dashed without a moment's notice.

Yes, Mer miscarried once, but it was before she was even trying.  Then she tried for a few months, and they gave up and adopted Zola.  Now, they are magically back together, their house (which took them 8 seasons to slowly build and they got nowhere with it), is all the sudden finished and they are living in it with their happy little baby Zola.  And now they are surprised with an unexpected pregnancy.

This is not real.  And it's not fair to all of us who are not going to get this fairytale ending.  Have them go through a few rounds of IVF.  Show the details.  Show the heartache.  Show what it does to a relationship.  Then let something happen whatever way you want it to, writers!  But don't give this to them so easily.  It's a disservice to the beautiful work you started out to do in highlighting this plight that effects so many.

The previews for the winter-season finale lef us with a bit of a cliff-hanger, having Mer express her fear that she'll miscarry again and Derek giving her a concerned look.  So we'll see I guess.  I know I'll be tuned it to see this thing play out either way.

Childless Couples Don't Live As Long As Those With Kids?

On Rock Center with Brian Williams on Thursday night, there was a quick report about a Dutch study that was recently published in the December issue of Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, which finds that childless couples don't live as long as those with kids.

Being the good librarian that I am, I did some research and found the original article, which turns out to be much more interesting than these popular media sources are letting on.

The study finds that childless women's risk of premature death (such as cancer, circulatory disease, and accidents) is four times higher than those who gave birth to their own children, and twice as high as women who adopt a child.

It also finds that men who don't become fathers are twice as likely to suffer from premature (or crude as the study refers to it) death than men who either have biological children or adopt (it's apparently all the same to the guys I guess).

The really interesting part that you have to dig into the original study itself to really find, is that this study also differentiates between voluntary and involuntary childlessness.

The nature of the study is inherently causes the researchers to look at this from the perception of the involuntary childless.... because their entire pool of subjects are couples undergoing IVF treatments!

The news media sources don't highlight this, but the other major finding of this article is not only that the involuntary childless don't just have a higher mortality rate, we have a higher risk of psychiatric illness too.  I can 100% believe this.

Interesting tidbit I learned from the article: In Denmark, couples must attempt IVF before they can adopt, and the government provides 3 free cycles of IVF!

B & I really need to move to Europe, A) so we can do IVF and  finally have a baby, and B) so we can apparently live longer and not go crazy :)

Can Ibuprofen Sabotage Conception?

So right after returning from India, I got super sick.  I mean like crazy, literally sleeping all day & all night for four days in a row, barely eating, cold/flu-like symtoms sick.

Don't worry, it wasn't anything I caught from travelling to India... more likely it was from travelling in general, after being stuck on planes for 20 hours in that dry non-circulating air, I was bound to come down with something.

As soon as I started to recover from that, I got my period (see yesterday's post).  So there went nearly another week.

After being down for the count for two weeks, I haven't been feeling too hot... just kind of tired and achy.  I've probably just been sitting at my desk for too long trying to get caught up on work.

Ok, so my purpose for sharing all this, is to illustrate why I've been taking a lot of over-the-counter medications lately.  Specifically ibuprofen.

This has been my go-to-drug since I hit puberty in my pre-teens.  During the week of my period, I'll often take three 200-mg pills every three hours for the first three days!  Later, in my mid-twenties when I unknowingly suffered from a herniated disk causing me chronic pain and sciatic nerve damage for three years, I self-medicated nearly daily with ibuprofen.

Since having back-surgery in 2008, I feel like I've become more of a normal person again with my ibuprofen intake, though it's still my preferred drug of choice whenever I get period cramps, headaches, or other random pains.

Anywhoo, like I said above, I've been feeling pretty crummy for the past (nearly) three weeks or so, and B noticed me taking a lot of ibuprofen just to get through the days.  

So he became concerned and started doing some simple googling and showed me this: http://www.conceiveonline.com/articles/which-medicines-could-affect-your-chances-getting-pregnant.

In this article, it states the following about ibuprofen:

"Common pain relievers such as the NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, which include Advil, Motrin, and Aleve) can sabotage conception, particularly if taken regularly. They may block production of prostaglandins, hormone-like chemicals that regulate inflammation and temperature. But they may also throw off the release of an egg each month. If you’re trying to get pregnant, stop taking ibuprofen from right before ovulation. 'But it’s perfectly alright to take it for menstrual cramps,' says Dr. Carson. Or try acetaminophen (Tylenol) instead."

So this was on Monday night... and of course after some additional quick googling on my part (I even found this one now while searching for an image for this post: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/sep/06/ibuprofen-warning-to-pregnant-women), I found enough chatter on this subject (none of it disproving it, though nothing very scholarly either), that I quit taking ibuprofen cold-turkey.

It's now Friday and I feel like I'm dying!  So many aches & pains and I have to feel them all :(

But I'm in the midst of my fertile period, and of course, if I'm not taking ibuprofen right now and this happens to be the one and only time we've ever gotten pregnant, I'm going to have to blame everything on the loads of Advil I've been taking, lol!

When my period comes in a few weeks I'll load up again.  This will just be something I cut out for a while during the rest of my non-menstruating days of the cycle... just in case.

Like Clockwork

After all the half-hearted India baby hopes last month, I thought I should throw out a quick update.

We can all be relieved to know that my period came like clockwork the day I expected it, and ended exactly when it was supposed to.

There was some concern that the travel/time changes would throw my cycle off like it may have earlier this fall after a trip to Finland & Russia, but fortunately my first cycle upon returning from India was right on track (as was the previously cycle which I had while I was there too).

So, while it's as sad as it always is when I get my period month after month and always find out I'm yet again not pregnant, at least my cycle isn't messed up.

The bright side (or exhausting & futile side) is that it means we get another chance to start trying all over again this month.... yay.... [insert sarcastic tone of voice and eye roll here].

Seriously though, I'm not bummed about it.  Relieved there's nothing new to worry about like there was in September/October.

What happened two months ago

Ok, I've alluded to this a few times now, so I'm finally taking the time to open up and share what happened in September.

My first cycle after my trip to Finland & Russia in August was totally normal.  Before that, in Finland, I was about 12 hours or so late, but that's actually about right because it was a 9 hour time difference.  My period also lasted a day or two longer, but that's pretty normal too since I'd been travelling.

Anyway, the next cycle all seemed normal through the rest of August and into September... except my period didn't come when it was supposed to in September.  When I was just a day or two late, I didn't think much of it since I had been travelling during the previous month and that might have messed up my internal clock a little.

When I was 3 days late I took an early pregnancy test, just to see if I should be going to the beer garden that night after work or not.  It was negative, but was started raining later that afternoon so I didn't go out anyway.  Probably for the best I figured, just in case.

Two days later I was five days late and was really starting to wonder.  I tested again and was still negative, so I started googling about when those tests were supposed to be most accurate.  Everything said that while they can detect on the first day of your missed period, they are more accurate about a week later.

So I decided to make an appointment with my gyno for a blood test.  The next morning, day 6 of being late, I went in for a blood draw.  B & I were both so convinced at this point that this must finally be "our time" that I didn't even bother calling the RE doctors.  I didn't want to go in to work that day after the appointment, as I wanted to be home where I had cell reception when I got the call with the news.

When they called late that afternoon, I was shocked to hear the test was negative.  They had done a quantitative test, not qualitative like I'd asked for though, so I was frustrated and asked for some answers.  The nurse who'd called me said that sometimes women can just have an "off" cycle.  That's when I thought I should schedule a check up with the gyno since it had been a couple years.  Time to make sure nothing has changed on my end of things while we've been working on B this whole time.  She couldn't fit me in for weeks though, which is why I didn't go until the morning I flew out for India.

I was still pretty frustrated though, and called Robbie to get a blood draw from them too.  He agreed that we should do a qualitative one to see if we could get any answers.  The next day, day 7 of being late, I went in.  Later that day, those results came back as 0, completely negative.  I was not pregnant.

I wanted to make an appointment to have another consultation with Robbie and start completely over on all my testing, in case something had happened in the last two years since I'd first had all my stuff done.  Maybe I've developed PCOS, maybe I have endo now, maybe I'm not ovulating anymore & need clomid, maybe my tube is blocked again and they needed to open it up again.  SOMETHING!

He couldn't get me in for a week, but I was going to be out of town presenting at a conference, so I had to schedule the appointment for two weeks out.  This was so ridiculous, how could they learn anything about what was going on with my body that would cause me to be a week late if they didn't look at me for two weeks?!?!? I was beyond frustrated.  I was devastated and crushed and angry.  I wanted some answers about what was going on.

I didn't believe it could be true that I was not pregnant and nothing abnormal was going on with me.  I did a ton of googling.  There are women who don't produce the HSG hormone & never get a positive pregnancy test result.  Also, if it was a chemical pregnancy, that might not produce the hormone either but would cause me to be late.  Also, if I was pregnant but about to miscarry, it's possible that I hadn't been far enough along to detect the hormone and then lost it before I could get the positive result.  Clearly, I was in denial and couldn't believe that I wasn't pregnant.  I was grasping for anything to hold on to that could help me make sense of everything going on around me.

But honestly, I've never been anything but like clockwork.  I always get my period right on target, maybe a day or two off, but never a week!  I always ovulated between days 14-16, like clockwork!  I'm so regular it's almost laughable in the face of our infertility, and here I was A WEEK LATE and the doctors were all just trying to tell me that sometimes women have an "off month" and I shouldn't be concerned unless this becomes a pattern?!?!?!?  I was so mad!  I want to be on the fast track to fertility, so if something major like this occurs, I want my team of doctors to start running tests and getting to the bottom of what caused this change!  Grrrrrr.....

The next day I started spotting and then got my period.  I fell into such dispair.  I finally started believing that it was true that I was either never pregnant at all, or had been and was miscarrying, or had had a chemical pregnancy.  Either way, it felt like a huge loss.  

Do you see the hidden baby in this image?
This was totally B & I making plans for our future with our baby when we thought we were pregnant.

Even B seemed to be affected by it.  We'd started making plans, even discussing whether I should cancel this trip to India that was coming up, and debating whether we'd be trying to do his big 4-0 birthday trip next summer, since I'd probably be on maternity leave.  We were making plans about decorating the spare bedrooms in our new house and buying a bigger car when we could afford it.  We were blissfully happy hoping that our time had finally come, and we'd gotten there naturally, without having to spend $20k + to get there.

Then on Day 8 I got my period and it all came crashing down around us.  B was sensitive the first day and then seemed to move on.  Not me.  I was sad and angry.  I tried to focus on figuring out what had happened.  I wanted answers.  Oh, and get this, my period only lasted 2 days!  WTF?!?

When I finally got to go in to see Robbie, he seemed to think that trying on our own is futile now and we should move on to IUI's. I told him that we want to skip that or maybe just do one, before moving on to IVF in early 2014.  He seemed to kind of write me off then.  If I wasn't going to do ART now, he didn't seem interested in exploring other less invasive ways to help us in the meantime.  He told me work on losing weight, and if my next few cycles were like this, then maybe we could talk about clomid, but if I get right back on track again, then he said no way to the clomid.

Then we argued about math which really pissed me off.  I came home and told B about how Robbie was trying to tell me that each IUI has a cumulative effect, which is such bullsh*t.  Dr. J had previously explained it to us the exact opposite way.  Yeah sure, each IUI has a 20% chance of working, but that doesn't add up to getting 100% odds after five IUI's.  No, the fifth one still just has a 20% chance of working, just like the first one!  

God Robbie pissed me off!  He tried to make the analogy that if I flipped a coin twenty times, my odds of getting heads at least once would be much higher than if I just flipped it once.  Yes, fine.  But I'm not doing 20 IUI's!  And besides, every individual time you flip that coin, it's always going to have a 50/50 chance of being heads.  

Gawwwwwwd he pissed me off!  And flipping a coing doesn't cost you $1300 out of pocket each time like an IUI does.  We'd rather put that toward the $13-20K + that we'll need for IVF soon anyway.  Which by the way, only has a 50% percent chance of working.  Geesh, with Robbie's reasoning, we should just spend all our money playing the lottery, and then then when we win after playing for a while (which according to him we'd have good chances of doing after playing more often), we could just pay for IVF right away!

Seriously, what kind of a doctor argues this way?  This is why I talked afterward with my gyno about how I don't "click" with Robbie.  I'm so glad she encouraged me to feel comfortable switching to Dr. Strawn.  I really feel like that guy respects me as an individual, not just another patient with the same old textbook problems & routine solutions.  Strawn's the one who said B & I have been infertile for over 4 years, since we went off contraception, not just the 2.5 years that we think we've been "actively trying."  I really respect this guy & feel validated by him, not belittled.

So that's the story.  For the first time in my life I actually felt the thrill that I always imagined I would once I finally got pregnant.  And then it was ripped away.  I'm kind of in the place where I was after we decided not to do the IVF in January 2012 again.  It's not a good place and I'm just trying to process everything.

Blogging is helping of couse.  Sometimes blogging too much kind of keeps me stuck in this world where it's all I think about so I stop for a while for my mental well being & balance.  Then something happens and it helps me to process it by writing it down again, and if I get positive feedback from those who love me or have been there too then it helps me a little more.  And if I can help someone else going through this too, then that helps even more still.

Travelling has been helping as well.  It keeps me busy so I don't have time to think about our struggle so much.  And it puts things in perspective by reminding me of all the wonderful opportunities that I'm able to take advantage of right now, which I probably couldn't do if I was pregnant or had kids.  India in particular has also reminded me that things could be a lot worse for us.  Many other people in the world don't have clean drinking water, a sanitary place to go to the bathroom, or have access to proper food or shelter.

On the other hand, travelling also gives me something positive to focus on like having new experiences and making new memories, especially as a couple with B this time!  Of course, like I've said in the last several posts, it's always in the back of my mind and I have guilty-little-pleasure thoughts about making a baby with B in India and naming it Asha or Indie or something.  But seriously, without some kind of hope, where would we all be?

I was watching a movie on the way to India and one quote really stood out to me. In the movie, the character was explaining that they have a quote here in India that goes something like this, 

"Everything works out in the end, and if it's not working out, then it must not be the end."

I love this.  Whenever I start to get sad about our baby woes, I need to remember this quote.  It really gives me renewed hope for our future and this crazy journey we are on.  It also stands as a testament to my stubborn personality and perseverance.   I will never give up on the dream of my child.  I just can't do it.  Motherhood is something I was born for.  It's all I've ever envisioned for myself.  It's all I've every truly wanted.  

And B is going to make such a good daddy.  His capacity for love, nurturing, and protection has always been one of my favorite traits of his.  He's going to be an amazing father and I just want to finally give him the opportunity to realize that potential.  I just want to have that man's babies.

Well anyway, he's joining me here in India for some touring after I finished my work here, so either way we'll have some amazing experiences and take with us some amazing memories to share for a lifetime together!

So you're saying there's a chance...

I'm sitting in the Hyderabad Airport, reading yet another book on infertility. Sometimes I wonder why I even bother anymore. I've read so many books by so many different kinds of authors (doctors, patients, nutritionists, homeopathic experts, former infertiles, etc), that by this point, I feel like I've heard it all and there is nothing new for me to learn. Yet each new book does present information in a new way and every now and then I do get inspired by new ideas.

The book I'm reading now on my iPad has a few words on varicoceles. As we know, B had varicocele repair surgery back in April. He had very large varicoceles on one side, and fairly large on the other. Dr. J had said that with most patients, a significant number see improvement in sperm counts and achieve pregnancy after 3 months post-surgery. Then another large percentage will see improvement and pregnancy success after 6 months. A few more after a year.

This book claims that men with large varicoceles may see improvement within 6-12 months after the repair.



This gives me some renewed hope because we are exactly at the 6 month mark as of RIGHT NOW!

I'd actually already given up faith in us seeing any improvement from the surgery, and just figured we were going to have to wait more than a year until we could afford IVF. But if the stats in this book are accurate, then we may now just be entering into our prime time for TTC!

Best part of all, after my ordeal two months ago, I was relieved to get my period on time (like clockwork) while I was here in India. It did last an extra day or two longer than normal, but that is common when traveling, especially with a nearly 12 hour time change, so I'm not worried about that at all. Anyway, my point is, I'll be in my fertile period next week and should ovulate once B joins me for our vacation in Northern India! Maybe the stars will finally align for us and we'll be able to make our own little Indian baby here together ;)

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Vitamin D and Infertility

So you know how I said in my last post that my gyno had me get some blood tests done?  Just about everything checked out normally.  

Geez, between this and the infertility testing, you'd think I'm the perfect female human specimen!  Sure, I had a deviated septum in my early twenties but that was easily fixed with a simple surgery at 23 & I've rarely had a sinus infection since.

Yeah, there was the back surgery for a herniated disk at 26 too, but that could really happen to anyone...

And of course there's always the pink elephant in the room, my weight.  The clinical charts say I'm obese, but the IVF specialist I saw down in IL said I wasn't so overweight that it should be effecting my infertility, and she warned me that a crash diet would be worse for my infertility than the amount of extra lbs I'm carrying.  Robbie said he's convinced I'm ovulating like clockwork like I say I am.  He does want me to work on losing weight though, just in case it might help.  A book I read said losing just 10% of your body weight can improve your fertility, sometimes for unknown reasons.  Sounds like the varicocele repair surgery improvement rate.  Anyway, maybe I'll talk to B about me getting a personal trainer again after we finishing paying off this trip to India (he's joining me TOMORROW for a week of vacation here!).  I had a personal trainer before our wedding and lost 20 lbs in 5-6 months.

Anyway, I digress.  My point was that my test results always come back perfectly healthy.  Which of course is a relief, but also sometimes frustrating and even maddening, since what I want most besides pregnancy and a baby is some answers as to why I'm not getting either of them.

Ok, so blood pressure, cholesterol  pre-diabetes screening, thyroid levels, etc all checked out great.  There was one huge red flag though this time.  Turns out I have a vitamin D deficiency!  I don't mean that explanation point to indicate I'm excited or anything, just surprised.

I guess a vitamin D level of 30-100 is normal, and 20-30 is considered insufficient   My level is 13.  That is considered a deficiency.  So I did some quick googling, and get this, overweight vegetarian women living in northern climates often have this problem... and frequently suffer from infertility as well!  There have been some studies of other infertility research done which correlates vitamin D supplements with increased fertility.  

I'll have to look into all this with better a more critical analysis of the research of course, but I called B right away and told him to bring me some vitamin D pills so I can start taking them right away when he joins me here in India!  

In the meantime I'm trying harder than usual to remember taking my pre-natal vitamins (I often feel defeated after so many years of taking them and not ever getting pregnant, which makes me ask, "what's the point?").  But they of course have some vitamin D in them and anything I can do to help at this point is worth trying!  

Also, when the smog clears in Delhi, I'll have to step out without sunscreen for 15 minutes or so.  Maybe we'll make an India baby when he gets here.  Or at least I'll get a tan.  Either way, it's a win-win I guess :)

Gyno Appointment

So get this, I'm in India.  Yep, I pretty much have the best job in the world.  In August they sent me to Finland for an international library conference, and now here we are, only in November, and they've sent me to India to recruit international students.  The pay isn't great, but the travel perks are AMAZING and my co-workers really make it a place I look forward to going every day.  I'm having the best time of life.  I'm creatively filled by my career, and they let me travel.  Life is good.

The morning before I flew out (late October), I voted.  Had to make sure I exercised my civil right/duty.  By the way, it worked.  My guy totally won :)

I did one other weird thing before flying out that morning.... I went to the gyno for my first annual exam & pap in two years.  After the pregnancy hopes two months ago, I realized I better get back in to see her for a regular check up.  I have had my vagina probed and blood drawn so many times in the last two years by my RE that I kind of forgot about my regular health maintenance.

It was kind of an interesting appointment actually.  I mean, don't get me wrong, it was all the usual stuff, the speculum, the breast exam, yadda yadda.  She decided to do some blood work on me since I don't have a general practitioner right now and had forgotten to get my "30-year" check up last year (like I said, I go to the clinic enough right now, I'm not looking for any extra trips to the doctor at the moment!).  She just wanted to check my cholesterol  thyroid, pre-diabetes screening, etc., since I'm in relatively good health otherwise, this was all she wanted to double-check on.

Before she sent me to the lab for the blood draw, we talked about the infertility.  She thought it had only been a year and a half, and I reminded her that it had been two years since I'd seen her last & she'd recommended us to Dr. J, but before that we'd been trying for 6 months.  Also, Dr.s Strawn & Robb (let's call him Robbie, makes him seem more human and fallible to me), told me that since B & I haven't used contraceptives since Sept. 2008, they consider us to have suffered from infertility for over 4 years.  That really got my gyno thinking.

Two things she told me really stuck out in my mind.  She told me to make sure both B & I have someone to talk to outside of our relationship about all this, since it can be really hard on a couple and men & women process it differently, especially since I want kids badly & B could honestly take them or leave them.  Anyway, she said the divorce rate for couples suffering from infertility is 70%!  That's right, you didn't misread it, SEVENTY PERCENT!

What does that say about B & I?  I think it says that so far, we must have a pretty incredible relationship, considering we've come this far through all this, especially the last 2.5 years since we started "trying."  It also makes me feel better about the tension it's caused between us too.  Makes me feel more normal.  Makes me want to hold on tighter to him though.  Makes me want to be more reasonable and understanding about his perspective on things when we're in the midst of a disagreement about all this.

The last thing the gyno said to me before I left for the lab was this, "Since you're taking a break for a while, watch your mood.... and watch your marriage."  Then she gave me some information about  a local support group for couples going through all stages of infertility.

God, that really makes me stop in my tracks and think.  To have a gyno warning me to watch my marriage, it must be something not to take too lightly.  Makes me think I better take that divorce rate seriously and literally watch my marriage!  Yikes!  

That's what I'm determined to do though. He's the love of my life.  Babies get older and grow up, but your life partner is the one you want to wake up next to every morning.  That's the one you're CHOOSING to spend every day with.  That's the one you want to go to bed with every night.  That's the one you want to call when something bad, funny, good, interesting, fantastic, horrible, or inspirational happens to you.  That's the person who matters most, and if you have a good one, you better hold on tight and not let them go.

On a completely different note, I find it funny that my gyno took, "we're trying naturally since B had varicocele repair surgery 6 months ago, and if that doesn't pan out, we're saving up for IVF in early 2014" to mean that we are "taking a break for a while."  Actually, it's not funny, it just validates the way I feel most of the time.

On a final note, my gyno asked how I was liking working with Dr.'s Strawn, Robbie, and J.  I told her J was a genius, and I really appreciated Dr. Strawn... but that Robbie, who was my primary RE over there, well, I wasn't really "clicking" with.  She told me that most of her patients love everyone over there, but the few who have issues, always say the issues is with Robbie!  She told me I shouldn't feel weird about requesting to switch to Dr. Strawn if I felt more comfortable.  I really like this gyno.  She seems to get me.  That, and she has never failed to provide me with instant gratification for anything I've requested from her... you know, except the whole pregnancy/baby thing.  Oh well, I guess I shouldn't be so greedy.

Think I'll look into that support group when I get home.

Pregnancy Announcements

This post is dedicated to a list of everyone who has announced their pregnancy since we have have started TTC.  

I saw a similar post on another infertility blog and it made me feel like I wasn't so alone, so it inspired me to start writing again.  In case you couldn't tell, I've been in a funk the past 5 months and didn't have the will to blog.  I'm hoping to get back into the swing of things again because it really used to help me.

For reference, we have officially been trying since June 2010 (29 months total), though we haven't been preventing since September 2008 (a total of 50 months)... the date our Reproductive Endocrinologists care about.

These are in reverse-chronological order from the most recent pregnancy announcement to the first one after we began TTC.  I recommend starting at the bottom and reading back up to the top.

• Second Cousin- Found out on Facebook - in her defense, I don't think I've told her about our infertility struggle (added 10-28-12)
• College Roommate- It's sort of coming full circle right now as the first one on this list is also the last (see the last bullet point).
• Co-worker's wife- He (the co-worker), announced that he and his wife were expecting the same week that B & I thought we were finally pregnant.  Rather than feeling "stung" as I normally do when I hear such news, I was giddy & excited for him because I thought I'd be announcing the same news in a few months when we were out of the first trimester.  Again, I'll write a separate post about this later, as I mention below.  The whole thing makes things even harder to swallow than usual when he talks about he and his wife's pregnancy now.  This is #2 for them and they are due in April 2013.
• Relative- A close relative on my Dad's side sent me a private message on facebook to tell me she's expecting her fourth in February.  I was one of the first people she told, but she doesn't even know about my infertility.  It was nice to be one of the very first to know about her happy little secret, and because she didn't tell me in person I didn't feel obligated to tell her about what B & I are struggling with, I just got to absorb her news and for all she saw, I was just happy & ready to celebrate with her!
• Co-worker's daughter- "Grandma" is very proud and this high-risk pregnancy was all we heard about for months, though knowing my infertility struggles she was very thoughtful and did ask if her talking about her grandchildren made me uncomfortable.  I told her I was happy for her and wanted to celebrate with her... It gets a little tough sometimes but it IS nice to see things from another phase in the circle of life.
• Another co-worker- we held a joint baby shower for these two ladies.  Her daughter was born in April or May 2012... I get the two co-workers' birth dates mixed up.
• Co-worker- told me face-to-face she was expecting.  They hadn't been to an RE yet, but had been TTC for two years and were starting to wonder if maybe they were facing some infertility issues themselves, but thankfully finally got pregnant naturally on their own.  Her son was born in April or May 2012.
• Second Cousin- called to tell me she was pregnant right at about the time B & I had decided not to go through with the IVF.  I tried to show her that I was happy for her, but the timing couldn't have been worse so I fear I may have hurt her feelings because I wasn't very animated in my congratulations.  I tried to explain later (she didn't know about our infertility before this), and I hope she accepted my apology and understood that I truly am very happy for her.  Her daughter was born in July 2012.  Her brother & his wife also had a baby earlier this year.  A couple of our other second cousins had babies during the last two years as well.
• Another College Roommate- had read my blog and respecting my wishes, emailed me to tell me she was expecting.  I called her right away and told her (honestly) how happy I was for her.  I was touched that she had been reading this blog and was so sensitive to what I was going through.  Her precious daughter was born in July 2012.
• Wife of an Old Co-worker- He (my old co-worker) facebook messaged me to tell me they were expecting after years of miscarriages and infertility.  They were only 5 weeks along at the time.  Very sadly they lost the baby pretty far along into the pregnancy.
• Friend I Studied Abroad With- told me face-to-face that she was pregnant before she even heard the heartbeat.  I felt privileged to hear so early... and lucky, so I could absorb the news relatively discreetly before she told a larger group of people later that day.  Her son was born in April 2012.
• Friend from College- emailed me to let me know she was pregnant with twins after TTC for quite some time.  Her sons were born in October 2011.  Her little blessings give me hope.
• Another Friend from High School- I can't quite remember how she told me.  Might have been over the phone actually.  We are close enough that she knew about my infertility, but not so close anymore that I've even had a chance to meet her daughter yet.  Her DD was born in the September of 2011.
• Friend from High School- I found out on FB when everyone else did... with an ultrasound picture.  This was #2, her first was a son born a couple months after our wedding in 2009, and her daughter was born in August 2011.
• Another College Roommate- called me the day we found out we may have male factor infertility to tell me she was finally pregnant after about two years of TTC.  Her son was born in July 2011.
• Cousin-in-Law- After years of secondary infertility, my cousin & his wife welcomed their 2nd DD in July 2011.  I was elated with joy for them and found a great deal of inspiration from their strength, perseverance, and good fortune.
• BFF from High School- called to tell me she was pregnant six months after her wedding.  Her daughter was born November 2010.  Six months or so later she called me to tell me she was pregnant with again w/ #2!  Her second daughter was born in February 2012.
• Another College Roommate- called me to tell me she and her husband were expecting a few months before B & I started actively trying.  Her daughter was born in September 2010.  #2 was a son born almost a week and a half ago, October 2012.  He was born around the same time that our baby would have been due if we'd gone through with the IVF and it had been successful.
• College Roommate- This was the first of my college crew to have a baby.  I think she called me to tell me, though it could have been an email.... but I do think she called.  She announced her pregnancy before we officially started trying in June 2010, but half of her pregnancy spilled into those first few months we were TTC so she was high on my radar at that time.  Her daughter was born in August 2010.  She just emailed me a week or two ago that they are now due with #2 & due in late April 2013... shortly before we would have been due if we had been correct when we were convinced we were pregnant a couple months ago (I haven't been able to bring myself to blog about this devastating event yet, but think I will be ready very soon).

Some of these people have gone through a lot of loss and heartache on their journey to have a child and others' stories have not ended well.  Of course, I am happy for all of these people but it has really put into perspective how long we have been trying. The list could go on and on but these are the people who came to mind first. 

It's a strange feeling when you've heard so many annoucements after trying for over 2 years. You would think I'd be numb to it by now... but no, it's still a little slap in the face every single time.  A little sting of sadness.  Just another reminder of how long we've been at this.  I don't know if it will ever get easier.  Ten months ago, we were gearing up for our 1st IVF and were worried we would have too many implanted embryos...HA!  I hope one day we can be expecting our baby, but the more time that goes by, the less I believe that day will be anytime soon.

Egg Sharing Program - Would you do it?

Denise Everett-Keene is able to see exactly when the sperm connects with the eggs through this monitor in a lab at The Hugh Wynter Fertility Management Unit at the University Hospital of the West Indies in Mona, St Andrew.

Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/UHWI--baby-factory--gets--700-m-expansion_11455333#ixzz1vcQj7NPq

I read this article about a week ago which mentions a clinic in Jamaica that offers an "egg sharing program" that is in such high demand that they are expanding their clinic.  The egg sharing program "allows older couples who are having difficulty conceiving, to receive healthy eggs from younger couples who are in need of fertility procedures, in exchange for their footing the bill for the donor couple's treatments."


I instantly got excited and wished that B & I could do it.  Well, I suppose there is nothing stopping us from looking into it, but I instantly wondered if it was that safe to do this there rather than in the U.S.  I started wishing that I could find such a program in the U.S.  But then I suppose it would become political and people would get all up in arms about.  


I've read recently about Indian surrogacy and how many people think that Western couples are exploiting poor Indian women.  But there is another side to that argument.  Some say that these women are getting money they desperately need for the their families and helping to share the joy of parenthood with another couple who needs help.

Couldn't this egg sharing program be seen the exact same way (on both sides of the argument)?

Then I started wondering, would I want a child of mine being raised by someone else?  What if the other couple's procedure worked with my egg, but mine & B's did not.  Then they'd have my child and I wouldn't.  Could I live with that?

Then I came across an article about egg donation: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/14/infertility-egg-freezing_n_1515792.html, and remembered that a lot of young women donate their eggs as a way to earn money in college.

I started thinking, what if I donated eggs a few times to earn enough money to do IVF in a few years?  Then I wouldn't have to worry about the risk of the other people getting pregnant with my eggs while I do not (like I might in a shared egg program).  And, I'd be helping another family struggling from the same hardships that B & I have been going through.

These programs prefer proven fertility, but it is not required.  And from what we can tell, our issues are probably male factor infertility (I have a clean bill of health on every infertility test I've ever had).  The programs do have an age limit though, so I'd have to hurry if I want to do it.  And I think they require a lower BMI, but I've kicked started a new effort to shed the extra lbs already. So maybe this could be an option for us in a year or so if we are not pregnant naturally (meaning B's surgery would have been successful!).

When I mentioned it to B, his first concern was that if I take all those hormones and give up all those eggs, it might jeopardize my fertility for us in the future.  Valid concern.  And since I'm 30 now, my eggs and time are both dwindling.

A shared program would probably combat that issue if could donate some of my eggs during the same cycle that we are using the rest to do IVF.  But do we have to go to Jamaica to do it then?  Maybe some more research in a year or two would be a good idea.  

Best to focus on the results of B's surgery for now and hope that we get pregnant naturally I suppose.  But I can't help but worry that time is running out for me if we need to consider other options.  I'm such a planner (and a worrier) and want to be prepared.  I don't want to look back and wish "if only we had...."

So now I'm wondering, how many others out there, who either are now or have in the past experienced infertility would consider something like this?  Either an egg sharing program or a few cycles of egg donation to earn money toward their own ART expenses?

Peeing on a stick at work again

I decided to be part of a study that tests the accuracy of home/portable body fat percentage testers, and in exchange I got a free scan with a DEXA machine which not only is the Gold Standard for measuring body fat percentage, but can also tell me things like my bone density and other important stuff... which I'll learn more about during my follow up appointment in a couple days.

What a DEXA machine looks like

I was mostly interested in joining this study to get this scan because last week I kick started a new weight loss initiative in effort to lower my BMI so that B & I will have the optimum set of circumstances for conception once we can start trying again in July... and also so that if we need IVF down the road, I'd qualify for some of the shared risk programs that are out there (more on those some other time).


Anyway, before I could get my scan on the DEXA done, I was required to take a pregnancy test due to the low amount of radiation I'd be exposed to during the scan.


Really?


REALLY?


I just can't escape being reminded of my infertility during any random, completely unrelated activity in my life, can I?


I still track my cycle every month and knew that I'm in the fertile period, so there's NO WAY a pregnancy test would have a positive result right now.  How humiliating and degrading to have to go into a public bathroom stall in a university building, and pee on a stick... again!  I used to do this a lot with OPK tests, but at least then I was hopeful and optimistic.  This was just awfully depressing.


Of course it didn't show a positive result - like I've never had that happen before [insert eye roll here].


Then we were able to move forward with the scan which was actually kind of neat.  I got to see my full body skeleton x-ray when it was over, and I learned there is a difference between BMI and body fat percentage.  It made me think of weight loss, obesity, and health in a whole new light, which I intend to blog about in my other blog (about healthy lifestyle and current topics of interest to me): queenofshibas.blogspot.com.


Like I said earlier, I go back later this week to learn about the results of my scan, and I'm thinking that what I learn can hep me to make the best health choices I can and hopefully not just lose weight (in effort to improve fertility) but also to improve my health overall... which has so many more benefits, especially if I ever do become a mom!  :)

I feel like I should explain something

We haven't announced anything officially yet (like on FB), but B and are in the process of buying our first house together.  Actually, it's this house, the one in the photo above!


We put in on offer at the end of March, and it was accepted the next day despite two other competing offers!  The night before B's surgery in early April we had our inspection, which went extremely well.  We did radon testing in the basement and the levels came back .1 higher than the safe level, so we spent a week or two negotiating back and forth and in the end, they agreed to split the cost of installing a certified mitigation system, which we will roll into our closing costs.


We meet with our mortgage lender later this week to finalize the paperwork and settle on a closing date, but we already put in notice with our landlord that we'd be starting to move out by July 1st at the latest.  We're keeping the apartment through July so we can take our time moving in, but for all intensive purposes, we hope/plan to be moving in to our new home around the end of June!


So...the reason why I feel like I have something to explain has to do with money.  I've spent four months blogging about the cost of infertility and talking about how hard it was to walk away from our planned IVF cycle because of the ballooning costs of it all... and here we are buying a house only a few months later... out of nowhere.


You see, B and I had planned to figure out the baby stuff first, then get safer cars, hopefully take another trip to Europe for his 40th birthday next year, and when all that was figured out, then start saving for a house - someday.  The house thing was on the ten year plan, not the two month plan.


So what happened?


The IVF saga happened.


If you'll remember, we pressured ourselves into trying to afford IVF before we had planned for it and way before we were financially ready.  Because of a misprint on a health insurance partner's website, they were willing to honor a severely discounted rate for me... but I only had a couple months to get it done.  Well, we hadn't thought we'd resort to IVF until we'd exhausted all other options, in two to three years maybe, but certainly not anytime soon.  


But when a chance in a lifetime like this comes around to get such a cheap rate on such an expensive procedure with such a better chance of helping us realize our dream of having a baby, well, we couldn't pass it up.  We had to try to take advantage of the situation.  So we spent the months of October, November, December and the beginning of January scrambling to beg, borrow, and steal the money we'd need to bring to the table for this discounted IVF procedure.


By January we had a weekend-long discussion about whether we could really do it.  No, actually it was whether we really wanted to.  We'd had to take out a persona loan of $7500 to cover the amount we'd be using from our FSA Health Spending Account because they only pay for medical procedures after the fact, not before.  We were planning to max out both of our credit cards to cover the cost of the medications we'd need.  We wiped out our savings on previous test & procedures and were living paycheck to paycheck.  It was a bad idea and it was all too much.  And none of it was a sure thing.  There was a very high chance that the meds would be even more expensive if my body didn't respond the way it should, or there could be other complications... and of course there was a 50/50 chance it wouldn't work anyway and then we'd have all that debt and nothing to show for it.


So we made the decision not to go through with it.  And then something kind of miraculous happened.  The Monday after we decided not to do the IVF, B's HR lady at work told him that the company hadn't processed the FSA Health Spending Account information yet for the year, and asked if he was sure he really wanted to have that much taken out of his paychecks...


He lowered it down to the cost of one IUI (about $1300) and had her cancel the rest.  Now we were really digging ourselves back out of the hole that the IVF drama had created!


We talked about paying off that personal loan of $7500 with itself too be rid that too.  Only we decided to wait and do our taxes first because last year we'd had to pay in $2000 and we might need it to pay our tax bill again this year (we'd pay off the rest with what was left and just pay off the remaining $2000 in about 4-6 months).


Turned out we owed money again.  $1300 this time.  Huh, just realized that's the cost of an IUI cycle.  Ironic.


Anyway, we were so mad at our lot in life.  We are two working individuals without a house or kids so of course our tax bill will be high.  Thing is, WE'VE BEEN TRYING TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT THAT LACK OF KIDS THING!  Ugh.


So the thought occurred to us, if we have no control right now over the kids thing... why not buy a house?  Thats something we can do to help lower our tax bill next year.  And it's still a buyer's market, with historically low interest rates.  Seemed like now was the perfect time to make this investment...


Plus, in the back of my mind, there were actually some fertility related issues to consider as well.  If we do have to do IVF down the road (if B's surgery wasn't enough for us...), at least the whole "saving up for a downpayment on a house" thing wouldn't be getting in the way of saving for IVF.  And if for ANY reason we wound up adopting, I'd think having a home for the child could only help us.  And finally, and this one is probably the least important but stuck with/stung me the most: a certain family member who shall remain nameless made the comment in a long list of reasons why should not do IVF (during that bitter weekend when we were ultimately deciding on our own not to go through with it anyway), that we should concentrate now on "creating a life for a child" and that the child would just come after we took care of that.  


Completely ignorant and insensitive.


This person wanted us to work on taking care of ourselves first, buy a newer & safer car for B, and buy a house. Then, and only then, think about a child.  This person didn't understand that time is ticking against us on that last milestone and that it won't magically (or through karma or whatever) happen just because we've got all our other ducks in a row.  But anyway, in the back of my mind I kept thinking throughout all this house-hunting stuff that at least this person can't make any more comments about "creating a life for a child" if we have to/choose to do IVF later.  And really, we probably won't be discussing our plans with this person anyway.


So, we chose to use that money from the personal loan to put down a downpayment on a FHA loan!  We'll be able to pay it off very quickly, and once that's gone our mortgage will be much less then our current rent, so we'll be saving money every month on top of the tax break we hope to get next year!  All money that can be saved up for other important things to consider in our future ;)


In the end, it really feels like everything happened the way it did because it was supposed too.  None of this house business would have ever been possible without all that IVF crap.  It's a very bright silver lining.  And now, not only has it all distracted me from my sadness and depression from our infertility, it is also lending me nothing but hope & opportunities to think about for a long time to come.  This kind of positivity is EXACTLY what I needed right now.  This all couldn't have happened at a better time.


We've been working through a non-profit agency that does mortgage counseling which I receive free access to as a benefit through my work.  This company has been amazing and helped us to find special loan programs out there in our city, which we couldn't have found on our own.  They also helped us find our AMAZING realtor too.  The whole process could not have been more positive.


And so between the meetings with this non-profit, our realtor, house hunting, putting in offers and counter offers, dealing with inspectors and negotiations, we've had a very busy Spring this year!  Now we are just waiting for things to be finalized and can't wait to move in around the beginning of July... 


July.


That's when we find out if B's surgery improved things for us and we can start trying for a baby again.  I think between the busyness of planning the packing, the move, the cleaning & unpacking, the decorating, and the house-warming parties... we won't really have much time for dwelling on the TTC process again for a quite some time.  But we'll be able to enjoy our summer knowing that we have nothing to think about but hope and possibility for a while:)


July.


I can't wait for July!